Syndicate

New York Gold Market

New York’s gold trading pit at the COMEX opens and begins at 8:20 A.M. Eastern Time and starts operating while the London market is still open. COMEX has a very singular atmosphere, which seems somewhat like an auction and is very different from what occurs in London. Surely everyone has seen the chaos that goes on in television at some point. This is a frantic atmosphere in which traders shout, point fingers, wave their arms, and make hand signals and it looks like there is complete confusion and chaos. However, believe it or not this seeming chaos is actually being done in absolute organization. Buys and sells are done as a matter a fact and the prices are set. Normally the people inside the pit do go into a rage. After the terrorist attack of September 11 in 2001 the trading day was reduced and it now closes the COMEX gold market at 1:30 P.M. Eastern Time. At the time in which President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued an executive order to seize the American’s gold in 1933 until 1975 after President Gerald Ford signed the legislation to legalize it again, gold was not officially traded in the United States. When gold was legalized again, the public became interested and the financial population started to increase very quickly. COMEX responded and came in very quickly with the 100-ounce futures contract. COMEX is located in downtown Manhattan in the World Financial Center and it has a very roomy trading floor in which all the frenzy begins. The price that is made on the trading floor can be seen on the trading screens on television throughout the United States and in the rest of the world. Gold firms then use this as the base to price bullion and bullion coins. Now that the world has Internet the prices are available by subscription in either real time or delayed time and most traders and brokers pass on constantly during the business day. Some of the most common terms that are used interchangeably by gold firms are “COMEX price” and “New York price”. After hours futures trading is done after COMEX closes and is conducted through the NYMEX ACCESS Internet based trading platform. The ACCESS trading starts at 3:15 P.M. Eastern Time, Monday through Thursday, and ends at 8:00 A.M. the next day. Trading begins for the week on Sunday at 7:00 P.M.